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ARM Makes Its CPU Roadmap Public, Challenges Intel in PCs With Deimos and Hercules Chips (pcworld.com)

Posted by msmash on from the let-the-race-begin dept.

With PC makers like Asus and HP beginning to design laptops and tablets around ARM chips, ARM itself has decided to emerge from the shadows and unroll its roadmap to challenge Intel through at least 2020, PCWorld writes. From a report, which details ARM's announcement Thursday: ARM's now-public roadmap represents its first processors that are designed for the PC space. ARM, taking aim at the dominant player, claims its chips will equal and potentially even surpass Intel's in single-threaded performance. ARM is unveiling two new chip architectures: Deimos, a 7nm architecture to debut in 2019, and Hercules, a 5nm design for 2020. There's a catch, of course: Many Windows apps aren't natively written for the ARM instruction set, forcing them to pay a performance penalty via emulation. Comparing itself to Intel is a brightly-colored signpost that ARM remains committed to the PC market, however.

ARM-powered PCs like the Asus NovaGo offer game-changing battery life -- but the performance suffers, for two reasons: One, because the computing power of ARM's cores has lagged behind those of the Intel Core family; and two, because any apps that the ARM chip can't process natively have to be emulated. ARM can't do much about Microsoft's development path, but it can increase its own performance. Finally, if you were concerned that ARM PCs will be a flash in the pan, the answer is no, apparently not. Further reading: ARM Reveals First Public CPU Roadmap - Targeting Intel Performance (PC Perspective); and ARM Unveils Client CPU Performance Roadmap Through 2020 - Taking Intel Head On (AnandTech).

17 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. If ARM "really" wants to compete with Intel by mandark1967 · · Score: 5, Funny

    They need to get off their lazy ass and introduce several major vulnerabilities into their CPUs as they are seriously lacking in that category...

    --
    Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
  2. Re:Ohio, Leon Chen by TheCycoONE · · Score: 2

    Would be interesting, except 10nm, and 7nm are marketing terms with no basis in reality, and are actually the same. https://www.eejournal.com/arti...

  3. Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by JoeyRox · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There are already rumors Apple is developing a desktop version of their iPhone ARM processors, which have larger dies and much better performance than nearly every other ARM implementation..

    1. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      There are already rumors Apple is developing a desktop version of their iPhone ARM processors, which have larger dies and much better performance than nearly every other ARM implementation..

      I expect they can succeed without too much trouble. What the mobile ARMs lack which the desktop CPUs have is wide, fast memory busses and large caches with wide, fast internal busses. Those things suck power though.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re: Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by c6gunner · · Score: 2

      Apple can do inexpensive. They've done it in the past (iPod shuffle, iPhone SE, Mac mini) and they're still doing it right now (Mac mini).

      All of those products were more expensive than competing products in their class. If apple sells something for $5 that might fit your definition of "inexpensive", but when competing products only cost $2 then no, in the context of the discussion it's not at all inexpensive. Apple charges a premium, and that premium exists refuardles of whether the specific product we are talking about costs $5 or $5,000.

  4. Deimos and Hercules? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Missed the opportunity to call them Phobos and Deimos

    1. Re:Deimos and Hercules? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Funny

      Not to mention that all computers using Hercules will be stuck in monochrome 720×350.

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      #DeleteFacebook
  5. how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have?

    1. Re:how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have? by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Informative

      ARM is fabless and therefore only designs CPU cores. This means it's up to the chip maker to include a PCI-e interface. So far, everyone making ARM chips cares fuckall about PCI-e and therefore they don't add any too their chips because all they care about is making smartphone chips.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  6. Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by Hydrian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If ARM is going to start making desktop class CPU/SoCs, this is where Linux can show off. Window doesn't have good ARM application support. The open source community has been supporting ARM for years. Instead of being behind the game in available software compared to Windows, Linux can ahead of the game in available software.

    This could also help push more 3rd party binary software developers to port their software to ARM + Linux.

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    No good deed goes unpunished.
  7. Re:Overall not impressed so far by higuita · · Score: 2

    who cares about windows, linux runs fine! :D

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    Higuita
  8. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

    Yah. I'm pretty sure my next laptop will be AMD APU. The one after that might be ARM.

    BTW, where is the GPS in my laptop? 4G modem? Bluetooth? Just asking.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  9. Linux on Arm by bigtreeman · · Score: 2

    Another good reason to switch from Windoze to Linux

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    Go well
  10. Returning to desktop by GreatDrok · · Score: 5, Informative

    It would be more accurate to say ARM is returning to the desktop market. The original ARM (Acorn RISC Machine) based Archimedes was a very fast 32 bit desktop machine released in the mid 1980's and I remember being amazed at the performance which utterly trounced anything Intel could produce at the time. I even used an Acorn R540 in 1990 which was running a nice UNIX environment and could even run a software PC to emulate both DOS and Windows on top of that. It took years before Intel was even in the same ballpark as the ARM from those days and even through the 90's there were plenty of chips that were much faster than anything Intel could make (Alpha for instance, what a joy!) and it is a shame that in the last 20 years or so we've seen most of these die off. Time for some new blood.

    --
    "I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
    1. Re:Returning to desktop by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      I agree with you ARM performance was great at the time, but I would point out that pretty much everyone had chips that were faster and more pleasant to program for than Intel at the time. Motorola, IBM...

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  11. Watch for Thanoss by tepples · · Score: 3, Funny

    You should look at NXP QorIQ chips, Marvell, and NVIDIA.

    The problem with Marvell is that half of your data could disappear with the snap of a fingerr.

    1. Re:Watch for Thanoss by tepples · · Score: 2

      That was a joke son.

      Marvell's name happens to resemble that of Marvel, a superhero comics publisher that Disney bought a few years back. The most recent film in Marvel's cinematic universe, Avengers: Infinity War, had a character wipe out half the life in the universe by assembling a magic glove and snapping his fingers. Hence the doubling of the final letter in "fingerr" and "Thanoss" to parallel "Marvell".